COACHING IMPACTING PEOPLE

Bill Carrier: We just started talking about how research into social impacts is a critical question and one that has been pretty much untouched, and it brings me back to where we started, which is how much you personally are working in this area, both as a coach and as a steward of the profession. Your sharing this information right now is a great example of what you’re doing, in order to help others have that social impact.

Lew Stern: I appreciate that, and thank you.  What I need to let you know is that there are many talented people who are doing as much or more than I am to steward the coaching professional discipline.  There are unbelievably wonderful, dedicated people who are giving of their lives, literally.  I know coaches and coaching researchers who have moved to Africa, India, South America, so many parts of the world, into impoverished areas for months every year of their lives, to help build coaching within communities for people to coach each other. Many of these coaches are going into countries that are war-torn, putting themselves in danger so that the leaders of those countries can stop wars.  I know people who are spending most of their lives not getting paid to identify opportunities for making a difference by using coaching to save our planet for future generations.

The one thing that I’d like to say, in my closing anyway, is that coaching doesn’t just have to be a professional discipline.  Coaching is an unbelievable resource for every one of us to use every day in our lives, with the people with whom we interact in our personal and in our work lives.

We know from research that compassion makes a difference; that looking someone in the eye makes a difference; that unconditional regard makes a difference; that helping a person discover things on their own instead of telling them makes a difference; that coaching someone so that they operate primarily in their parasympathetic nervous system helps them so they are not on guard and they stay more open-minded to possibilities.

We know some of those things already, but it doesn’t have to be done just by professional coaches.  The opportunity, the biggest opportunity, is for every one of us to coach each other.  Every day, when we have those end-of-the-day conversations with our partners or with our kids or with teachers, other people that we know or someone on the street that you meet, or someone at your religious organization or in your neighborhood. We can stop and do more than listen.  Coaching is more than listening. There is a great potential to apply coaching with each other to change the world one person at a time.

Bill Carrier:  You managed again to bring it back to how other people are doing coaching—a gracious and big-picture perspective which seems characteristic of your approach.  Thank you!

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Dr. LEW STERN has over 35 years experience as a leader, management consultant, executive coach, organization and leadership development specialist, and consulting psychologist. He focuses on helping boards, leaders and their teams develop skills and strategies and change their organizations and how they run them. He has worked with hundreds of leaders and would-be leaders to improve their leadership and accomplish their business and mission objectives on a very practical level.

Services
Lew provides a wide array of consulting and coaching including: Customized 360-degree feedback for leaders, executive coaching, leadership assessment and development planning, on-boarding consulting, succession planning, and development for high-potential leaders.

Demonstrated Results
His past research has demonstrated 75% of his coaching clients to have been promoted or given expanded responsibilities within a year and doubling of the typical retention rate of leaders assigned to new positions.

Publications and Presentations
Lew has written many publications and presented at major conferences not only in leadership development but also in quality assurance, process reengineering, customer focus, interpersonal communication, team development, and the potential social and environmental impact of coaching.. His most recent books are Executive Coaching: Building and Managing Your Professional Practice (Wiley, 2008) and the 5th Edition of The Executive Coaching Handbook.

Leadership Experience
He has served as President of Focus Consulting and Stern Consulting, Vice President at ODI, Senior Vice President of Manchester Partners International, and Executive Director of the Foundation for International Leadership Coaching.

Thought Leader in Leadership Coaching
Dr. Stern serves as Senior Advisor to the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School and has a faculty appointment as Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School. He is a Co-Founder and Past President of the New England Society for Applied Psychology, and Co-Founder and Co-Leader of The Executive Coaching Forum. He was a Founding Board member of the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching and founded and served as the Director of New England’s only Graduate Certificate Program in Executive Coaching (at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology). Lew served as Director of the Annual Boston Conference on Executive Coaching for five years. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Coaching Psychology Review and on the Editorial Board of Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice.

Selected Client List
Fidelity Investments, Federal Express, American Express, AT&T, Omgeo, Johnson & Johnson, Rohm & Haas, Tufts Health Plan, State Street Global Advisors, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Brown Brothers Harriman, Northeastern University, Rogers Corporation, Boston Scientific, Pulmatrix, Wellington Management, as well as many other leading organizations in the retail, telecommunications, technology, hospitality, healthcare, educational, and non-profit sectors.

Education
Lew received his B.A. with Honors from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Stern is a licensed psychologist in Massachusetts and a Certified Health Care Provider. He has served as an adjunct faculty or guest lecturer in business, management, and organization behavior and development at many colleges and universities.

Lew is networked with many other consultants, coaches, and coaching and consulting firms and organizations. These collaborative relationships allow him to refer to or bring in leading coaches and consultants with special backgrounds and from different locations across the U.S. and around the world. His consulting network provides a depth and span of consulting resources while ensuring special attention and high quality for each of his client projects.

A Commitment to Global Sustainability
A significant portion of Lew’s time is dedicated to pro bono consulting and coaching of leaders of non-profit, government, and international non-government organizations who are committed to environmental sustainability, peace, and quality of life.